The Rules Do Not Apply

I just realize that eight of the last ten books that I’ve read have been memoirs, and seven of those eight have been written by women. So my apologies if this review isn’t too in-depth — I’m trying to sneak it in before April ends and honestly I didn’t really like it very much so I can’t remember too much. It doesn’t help that I immediately followed it with a book by someone with almost exactly the same name but a much more interesting story.

“Daring to think that the rules do not apply is the mark of a visionary. It’s also a symptom of narcissism. —”

So in The Rules Do Not Apply, Ariel Levy talks about the “unconventional life” that she’s built: falling in love with an older, married woman, embracing feminism, resisting traditional roles — nothing too startling in my opinion but I’m younger than her so maybe that’s why. In 2012 she left on a reporting trip to Mongolia, and within a month had lost a baby, lost her wife, and her job. She talks a lot about what got here to that point and how she recovered. It’s a perfectly fine story but nothing I’m ever going to remember in the future.